Work Text:
I have never had so many people tell me all at once that my life is empty and without meeting.
Oh, not always with words. Sometimes it’s the implication of their apologies and their well-wishes.
But I look at you, sitting in the light a dying ember, dark hair down around your shoulders,
And you say, as we watch our fourth Christmastime fade into the mist,
Alone in the dark after we’ve left my family, nothing left here in this home than us and a Christmas tree and two obnoxious cats and a dog who thinks she is half her size,
You say, “Do you ever have regrets?”
In that soft, still, melancholy way, with eyes that wander up the stairs to the empty nursery, the still nursery, the empty hopes that feel so far away now, not even worth daydreaming about.
Do I ever regret you?
When my siblings surround us, every year with another baby—or two—or three.
When my parents whisper “next year, next year,” the promise they make and can’t keep.
When doctors reassure us that’s there’s nothing “really wrong,”
And “we ought to be able to,”
And yet here we are.
Do I ever regret you?
With your ready laughter and your sparkling eyes,
And the way every year, month, week, day those eyes deepen and I see more of your soul and I realize who I married,
As I see how created you were for this moment you sit in—my bride, sitting by our hearth and looking so melancholy.
I know your grief better than my own, same as I know your heart, your soul, your body, and I see that without that knowledge, my life would be a bare and empty void, waiting for some hint of joy or life.
And I ask you, “How could I regret the woman who is the beginning and end of me?”